Phillip K. Dick’s Aphids Aren’t Morgellons Disease

By consumerist.comMay 23, 2006

Morgellons Disease certainly sounds sci-fi: unexplained lesions that never heal open up on the skin, out of which spring strange black fibers and mysterious protuberances. This has caused sites like Adrants to speculate that it’s all a viral movie campaign for the upcoming film adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, since the characters in that film are convinced their bodies have been possessed by aphids. Right, and AIDS was a viral campaign for Philadelphia.

The always excellent Mind Hacks has taken Ad Rants to the mat, rolled them up in the mat, then run it through a thresh shredder. In particular, they mention that an actual professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at Oklahoma State University has made researching Morgellons Disease for years, giving several public statements. They point out that if he was bought off by a marketer, his career would be over.

We actually like the other theory being suggested: that the rumor of Morgellons Disease being a viral marketing campaign is a viral marketing campaign itself. That would be the sort of viral campaign Phillip K. Dick himself.